“Hey what are you doing!” the boy yells as she tosses his socks and underpants on the fire.

“Something your mother should have done a long time ago.” Mrs Postlethwaite said as she pulled the buttons off his shorts and tossed both pairs on the fire. He watched in horror as the smoke and flames enveloped them. Mrs Postlethwaite plunged the vests into the tub and rinsed them. “These will do for cleaning cloths,” she said as she rung them out and hung them to dry before grabbing his tatty old jumper and saying that it’s only good for the wool. She takes hold of a loose strand and pulls it. She winds the ever-growing strand of wool into a ball around her hand and Billy just watches, open-mouthed as the hole in his jumper gets bigger and bigger.