"Aye," Lachy said. "But you promised no tae tell, didn't ye?" He smiled thinly over at Fergus, sitting on the other side of the small table. "Your maw always call ye 'Darlin'. aye?"

"No," Fergus said, sitting straight and drawing a hand across his forehead, moving some hair away from his eyes. "Only sometimes."

Kenneth got up and went to stare at a big model ship in a glass case on the far side of the room. It was an ordinary steamer, not a warship, unfortunately, but it looked magnificent, like one of the ones he'd seen in the big museum in Glasgow when his dad had taken him there. The ship was wonderfully detailed; every stanchion and rail was there; every tiny port-hole, even the oars in the tiny shore-boats behind the tall funnel, their seats and internal ribs thinner than match-sticks.

"You her darlin, ur ye?" Lachy said, wiping some crumbs from the plate. "You her wee darlin, that right, Fergus?"

"Well, what if I am?" Fergus said sniffily.

"Weyl, whort if a eym?" Lachy mimicked. Kenneth looked round from the gleaming, perfect model.

Fergus's face looked pinched. "At least my mum and dad don't hit me, Master Watt."

Lachy sneered, stirred in his seat. "Aye, great fur some," he said, standing up. He walked round the room, looking at some wooden aircraft models on a desk, tapping them. "Very fancy carpet, Fergus darling," he said, going up and down on his heels on the thick pile of the intricately-patterned rug. Fergus said nothing. Lachy picked up some lead soldiers from a couple of trays ranked full of them, then stood inspecting some maps on the wall, of Scotland, the British Isles, Europe and The World. "They red bits aw ours, are they?"

"No, they're the King's actually," Fergus said. "That's the Empire. They're not red because they're commie or anything."

"Ach," Lachy said, "Ah ken that; but ah mean they're British; they're ours."

"Well, I don't know about 'ours', but they belong to Britain."

"Well," Lachy said indignantly. "Ah'm British, am ah no?"

"Hmm. I suppose so," Fergus conceded. "But I don't see how you can call it yours; you don't even own your own house."

"So whit?" Lachy said angrily.

"Yes, but, Fergus," Kenneth said. "It is the British Empire and we're all British, and when we're older we can vote for MPs to go to parliament, and they're in power, not the King; that's what the Magna Carta says; and we elect them, don't we? So it is our Empire, really, isn't it? I mean you when think about it."

Kenneth walked into the middle of the room, smiling at the other two boys. Fergus looked unconvinced. Lachlan rolled his eyes, looked at the small single bed, then at a couch in one corner. "You got this room all tae yerself?" Lachy said, voice high.

"Yes, so?" Fergus replied.

"Bi Christ, it's all right for some, eh, Ken?" Lachy said, winking at Kenneth and walking over to the model ship in the glass case. "Aye," he said," tapping the glass, then twisting a little key in a lock at one end of the case; the side panel of the case opened. "Ah bet ye can get up tae all sorts aw things in here by yourself at nights." He started trying to haul the model out of the case.

"Stop that!" Fergus shouted, standing up.

Lachy shifted the whole glass on its stand, reached in and lifted the model out of its two wood and brass cradles. Kenneth saw the rear mast bend against the top of the case. The black threads of the radio wires sagged.

"How can ye play with it in here?" Lachlan protested, straining to pull the model out.

"Lachy — " Kenneth said, starting over to him.

"It's not a toy!" Fergus said, running over. He swatted Lachy's arm. "Stop it! You'll break it!"

"Ach, all right," Lachy said. He slid the model ship back in. Kenneth noticed with some relief that the mast flexed back into shape, hauling the radio antennae taut again. "Keep yer hair on, darling."

Fergus locked the door of the case and pocketed the key. "And don't call me that!"

"Sorry, darling."

"I said stop it!" Fergus shrieked.

"Ach, dinnae wet yer knickers, ya big lassie."

"You disgusting little —»

"Oh, come on, you two; act grown-up," Kenneth said. "Fergus," he pointed over to the window, and a slope-topped display case standing under it. "What's all this stuff?"

"That's my museum," Fergus said, glaring at Lachy and walking to the window.

"Oo, a museum," Lachy said in a pretend posh voice, but came over too.

"Things I've found, locally," Fergus explained. He stood over the case, pointing. "That's a Roman coin, I think. And that's an arrowhead."

"Whit's that green thing?" Lachy said, pointing to one corner.

"That," Fergus told him, "is a fossilized pear."

Lachy guffawed. "It's a bit aw bone, ya daft bugger. Where'd ye get yon? Back a the butcher's shop? Find it in the dug's bowl, aye?"

"No I did not," Fergus said indignantly. "It's a fossilized pear; I found it on the beach." He turned to Kenneth. "You've got some education, Kenneth; you tell him. It's a fossilized pear, isn't it?"

Kenneth looked closer. "Hmm. Umm, I don't know, actually."

"Fuckin bit a bone," Lachy muttered.

"You filthy-mouthed little wretch!" Fergus shouted. "Get out of my house!"

Lachy ignored this, bent down, face over the cabinet.

"Go on; get out!" Fergus screamed, pointing to the door.

Lachy looked sourly at the pitted, vaguely green exhibit labelled "Fossilized Pear, Duntrunne Beach, 14th of May 1945."

"I'm not kidding! Out!"

"Fergus — " began Kenneth. He put a hand on the other boy's arm. Fergus hit it away, face white with fury.

Lachy wrinkled his nose, which was almost touching the glass of the cabinet. "Still, whit dae ye expect frae a laddy that hides in a lavvy?"

"You pig!" Fergus screamed, and brought both fists thudding down on the back of Lachy's head. Lachy's face crashed through the glass, into the display case.

"Fergus!" Kenneth yelled, pulling him away as Fergus kicked at Lachy's legs. Lachy screamed, jerked back, spilling glass, arms flailing, face covered in blood.

"Aah, ya basturt!" he wailed, staggering. "Ah canny see!"

"Lachy!" Kenneth shouted, hauling his hanky out of his pocket. He went to Lachy, grabbed his shoulders. "Lachy; stand still! Stand still!" He tried to wipe the blood from the other boy's eyes; it was all over his jumper, dripping onto the carpet.

"But ah canny see! Ah canny see!"

"What on earth is going on in he — Oh my God!" Mrs Urvill said, from the doorway. "Fergus! What have you been letting him do? And get him off that carpet; it's Persian!"

Lachlan lost an eye. The Gallanach Glass Works, Ornaments Division, made him an artificial one. Fergus was soundly beaten by his father, and not allowed out for a fortnight. The Urvills granted the Watt family the sum of one thousand guineas in full and final settlement of the matter, the papers drawn up by the firm of Blawke, Blawke and Blawke.

Lachlan was still growing, and perhaps because of that during his mid-teens the eye kept falling out, so another, slightly larger, was made; Lachlan was allowed to keep the old one. He had a third glass eye, which he'd got from the hospital when the first one had been lost for a week (it was eventually discovered, months later, under a chest of drawers in Lachy and Rab's bedroom, where presumably it had rolled during the night), but it was of inferior quality; duller and less lifelike, and he kept it as a spare.

He was the boy with four eyes, and he didn't even need glasses. Or rather a monocle.

"Keep an eye out for us, Lachy!" and variations thereof became a popular phrase amongst his school-mates, though not to his face after the first boy to say it within Lachy's earshot, if not sight, was held down by a half-dozen powerful young Watts and forced to swallow the brown-irised orb, and then to bring it back up.