Nicholas doesn’t remember anything. He was still a baby really. There’s no point even asking him. I have to remember it all myself. Nicholas had just stopped wetting his bed. We were living in the flats near the chocolate factory. Standing in the street at night, you could smell the chocolate cooking. Dad and I would go for a walk while Mum was getting Nicholas ready for bed. Sometimes the wind would take the chocolate into the flats and I could smell it from our room. When I went to bed Dad would read me a story and turn the light out. I’d close my eyes and, with dinosaurs in my head, I would sniff in the chocolate till I was asleep. (I always breathe through my nose so that nothing gets into my mouth without my knowing about it. Bill Economou from upstairs once swallowed a fly in his sleep. He said his window was open. He was dreaming about chocolate.)

The books Dad and I read were always about dinosaurs. I couldn’t get enough of them. At that time I wanted to be a dinosaur scientist when I grew up. Dad said he thought it wasn’t a bad idea and that I was well on my way already. He said it beat making shoes in a shoe factory, which is what he did. I think he had a fair amount of respect for dinosaurs too.