She said Jane was a nuisance. She said the Devil would take her soul. She told her one day, when she grew up, she'd grow a Pinnocchio nose.

Her mother lied.

He said Jane was his little girl. He said she was his pet. Her father told her that she was his one and only.

Her father lied.

Zak said Jane was a cry baby. He said she was dead ugly too. Her brother told her she was a cuckoo in the nest.

Her brother told the truth.

At night, Jane curled up into a ball, waiting. Through dark hours, after he'd left, she clung onto her Teddy Bear. By day, she crept about the house but always he found her, hiding in the cupboard under the stairs.

Last September, she told her mother. Her mother screamed and hit her for telling such wicked lies. After that, her parents huddled together muttering and if he caught Jane looking, he'd smile.

Today, at dawn on her fourteenth birthday, Jane barricaded them all inside their bedrooms. Then she called out, 'Come and get me you bastards!' Moments later, three doors bashed against heavy furniture piled up outside their only means of escape.

Laughing at their angry pleas, Jane put a match to the taper. Suddenly there was a whoosh of flame that gobbled up a paraffine path weaving across the landing.


The blue carpet sizzled and turned black. Seconds later, flames leapt up to the ceiling and the lamp shade exploded, showering orange rain down onto banisters and stairs.

Dashing outside, Jane stood on the neatly cut lawn, waving up at their frantic faces, hearing their fists punch against double glazing.

Fred and Alf, the garden gnomes, laughed so much that Jane thought they might fall off their pink toadstools.