It’s impossible for my dad to push me through the utility window; I'm not that small. “Lard-arse!” Saliva sticks the curse to the nape of my neck as he yanks me down. “Gotta be the broken one then.”

I don’t want to.

I eye up the larger window’s jagged edges. My dad pulls out a couple of shards. “I'll give you a leg up.”

I nod. I don’t want to.

He lifts me up, squeezes my toothpaste body through the opening. Trousers splinter-rent, sucking glass needles from my finger as I land. “See the front door?”

From upstairs, the click of a bedroom door opening, a slippered footfall. Press myself into the wall and will myself into a blackout. I can’t answer him but if I don’t, he’ll call out again.

STFU. This is a bad word my dad says to my mother, and it makes her be quiet. My larynx throttles a giggle. A clock beats out the red adrenaline pump-pump of my heart.

Sound of the door upstairs closing. Nothing….Nothing.

Dart to the front door, wrap my tee-shirt around the key, pull back the bolt. “Attaboy, squib.” We’re house clearance specialists. Dad, silver pots, heavy ornaments. Me, trinkets. I spot a large diamond ring, glance over my shoulder, steal it down my trousers into my underpants. Transient overlords, we leave by the front and down the driveway. At the bus-shelter my dad lights me a Marlboro, his face sallow in the hiss of a match-flare. As we exhale, he ruffles my hair. “Good job squib.”

I nod. It’s mine—I earnt it. I’ll sell it, run away, find a better dad.

In its hiding place, the diamond waits for the dawn, waits to disperse that single ray into a multifaceted dazzle, all the possible futures a small boy can picture, will one day seize.