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The very second she turned her back, D. J. Burke said, “Hey look, everyone, Loser Boy returns.” At lunch break I walked over to him in the yard. He stared straight at me, snapping his bubble gum the way he always used to. I stared straight back. And then I pulled him to the ground and I put my foot on his chest and pointed my toe toward his chin. I told him that my will was greater than his. I wasn't rude or anything, but I said that I'd prefer if in future he didn't call me that name, or any
other names for that matter. I told him I wasn't a Loser Boy. I told him that he didn't have to believe me or anything but that as a matter of fact, I was a legend. He tried to hit me, but by then my reflexes were pretty good and I got there first.

He had to go to the nurse for a while, not that there was anything wrong with him. He made a massive deal out of it. Nobody called me Loser Boy anymore after that.

Very early one morning I went into Granny Deedee's room to see if she was awake, and we got chatting. I asked her to tell me about her brother, Crispin. She said the reason she had never talked to me about him before was because I had enough sad stories of my own, but I said I was ready for it now. So she told me that he'd rescued a load of young soldiers who'd been lying in mud, dying because they'd been shot by their enemies, who were only boys as well. Crispin had been tormented when he had come home, haunted by those memories of war, and the night before he was supposed to go back after his break from it, he killed himself at the south gates. That's why everyone hated people hanging around there. The gates had been locked up the day he died, and nobody was allowed to go through them after that.

She said that she hadn't cared to talk about it over the years, but I could tell it did her good, exhausting as it was to be reminded of such very sad things. I told her to stay in bed and I'd go down and bring her up some breakfast, and she said that would be very nice.

I sliced up a cottage loaf and I did the slices of bacon very carefully and I scrambled the eggs with exactly the right amount of butter. And when she saw me coming back in with the tray, she had this questiony look on her face, and when I put the tray down on her covers, she took me by the hands and she said, “Oh my goodness.”

She said it was perfect. All she asked for was an extra spoon of sugar in her tea, because she was feeling a little dizzy.

She looked at me for a much longer time than people normally do, with her big unblinky eyes, and she said, “Cosmo? Cosmo?” and I said, “Yes.” And she said, “It really is you.” And I was all like, yes, of course it's me. It's been me the whole time. And I smiled at her, hoping the whole scenario wasn't freaking her out too much. “Oh, deary me,” she said. “Why did I never see it before?” and I said that some things are mysterious and some things are difficult to explain.

“Thank you for everything, Cosmo. Thank you for this lovely breakfast and for all the other lovely breakfasts. I want you to know that you're a very special boy.”

“Special” didn't even get close to describing me. I'm not just special. I'm a Time Legend, that's what I am.

Mum and Ted brought John back from the farm. When I went down to the stables near Granddad's house, John was waiting for me. Someone had taken good care of him after all. His hooves were in pretty good shape. As soon as he saw me, he whinnied and danced. He practically smiled at me.

Me and John galloped again, the way we always used to. In through the trees and the fields and around the hidden corners. We leaped over barrels and old flower beds. We screeched to a halt every so often, and then we were off again. I could hear his breathing, fast and certain. I told him all about Blackbrick and Maggie and Nora and my young granddad, and it didn't matter if he didn't understand the whole thing fully. I could hear his hooves landing with cloppy, thuddy echoes as they grasped for a second on to the ground beneath before rising again. And I could hear someone laughing. For a second I didn't know that it was me. I was laughing the way normal people do. The way I've heard other people laugh when they're going really fast or when they're surprising themselves by doing something they're already very good at.

I sat with my granddad every single day before he died as that last autumn hardened into winter. I always tried to make sure he was as comfortable as possible. I usually held his hand, or at least I patted it a few times to let him know I was there. And even though everyone thought his brain was banjaxed by then, it actually wasn't. It was there the whole time; it's just that other people didn't know. My mum and Uncle Ted told me I should really try to stop hoping for any sign of recognition and not to be sad if he didn't know me. They said that it was going to get harder and harder for me to see Granddad the way he was, considering what a bright, brilliant guy I had always known him to be,
and considering how he used to be so clever and sharp and intelligent, known for living on his wits.

But nobody knew what used to happen when it was only him and me and we were able to talk about the past.

There had always been millions of photographs in Granny and Granddad's house, and during those last days I gave him a load more—of Blackbrick Abbey and of the stables and the horses and the driveway and Nora and Maggie. I had to make a few calls to get some of the others, and I had to spend a few hours on the Internet and go on a couple of journeys to get them. But I definitely think it was worth it. Nora's granddaughter sent me a couple of JPEGs of Nora when she was a grown-up. She was totally recognizable.

Me and my granddad had exactly the same conversation a good few times.

“Granddad,” I would say. And at first he wouldn't say anything at all. But then I would lean closer to him, and very quietly I would say, “Kevin, it's me. Don't you remember?” and when I said that, he would open his eyes and a massive smile would creep across his lovely old face.

“Ah, Cosmo. I've been waiting for you. I knew you'd come. I didn't want to go without seeing you,” he would say, and I would say, “Thanks.”

“What happened to the baby?” he would ask.

I told him the baby had grown up, and she had been fine and she had had children and grandchildren. I held up her photos close to his face so that he could see for himself.

I reminded him I'd been there when she was born, and I told him that with my own eyes I had seen her take her first gulps of air as a brand-new person, and I saw her name, Nora Cosmo, settle on her when she was a tiny, squirming, fresh newborn baby, full of a thousand possible futures. And he'd always say, “Yes, of course. I remember now. Trust you, Cosmo. Trust you for keeping me on the straight and narrow.” And when he said that, he would look as clear and bright and glittery-eyed as he had ever been.

“I thought it was going to be you and Maggie,” I would say to him.

“So did I,” he'd say, “but things don't always turn out the way you plan them.”

Too bloody right
, I'd think to myself.

I told Granddad that I still thought that Maggie dying was the biggest disaster of all, and how I still wished there had been a way that we could have done something about it, and he said yes, it was terrible, but you can repair life. Even in the middle of a tragedy, there's still the possibility of joy. Joy always bubbles under the surface, waiting to break through. He admitted it was difficult to believe when you were in the middle of the tragedy, but he said that I should still always try as hard as I could to remember the joy. I told him I'd do my best.

It was during one of those conversations that I realized who my great-grandfather was. I can remember exactly the
moment it hit me, because at the time I was looking down at my fingers. You're so used to your own fingers because they're attached to you that you don't usually think there's anything particularly remarkable about them. But if I look at mine even now, I still notice that they are a bit pointy.

And I thought about the number of times I had wished George Corporamore was dead, and how now he is. Long dead, as my granddad used to say. Maybe even lousy people aren't all bad. He did give money to Mrs. Kelly, and that's what saved Nora from going to a laundry orphanage, so I guess lousiness has its limits.

In any case, I try not to think about it too much anymore. Being related to someone like George Corporamore is the kind of thing that can drive you mad.

“You haven't forgotten me, have you, Granddad?”

Although he was very near the end of his life, still he managed to put this exaggerated pretend crushed look on his face.

“Cosmo,” he said, “how can you even suggest such a thing? How could I forget?” and he pointed at me then with his nonexistent finger. “For goodness' sake,” he rasped, chuckling now, “what kind of a person would I be if I forgot you?”

Then I rested my head on his chest for a while, and he whispered, “You're all right, Cosmo, aren't you?”

I told him that I really was all right.

I told him I was grand.

EPILOGUE