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At number 9 Pecunious Drive Danny threw the XBox controller across the floor as his cowboy succumbed to Buffalo Bill’s bullet again. Max was never sure what to do when Danny got upset like this, so he stayed quiet, hoping Danny would let him have a go on the XBox.

But he didn’t. He sat sulkily on the floor.

“Danny?” ventured Max. Danny stared at his Converse. They were brand new ones from America that you couldn’t even get over here. “Can I play, please?”

When Danny still didn’t answer Max tentatively reached for the controller. As his hand touched it Danny’s foot kicked it away so it collided with his dad’s stack of lever arch files, catching Max’s fingers in the process. He still didn’t speak.

“Ok” Max rubbed his fingers, “let’s play real-life cowboys instead? With a fort! You can be Buffalo Bill and I’ll be the Injuns?” Danny’s house was huge and had loads of great fort building materials and his parents were never home, so they wouldn’t mind if they made a mess. But Danny didn’t move.

“Why would we want to play like little kids? Is that what all poor people do?” He stared pointedly at Max’s grubby daps and pushed the controller out of his reach,

“I don’t want you touching my things. They might get dirty.”

Danny often said things like this when he was upset. It was true that Danny always had the best toys and clothes and Max didn’t understand why Danny was ever cross. But he didn’t mind, he’d just go home and come back when Danny was feeling better. When he wasn’t cross, Max reminded himself, Danny was fun. He got up to go.

“Sorry Danny” Max said as he let himself out “see you at school”. He heard the computer start up again, echoing through the large, empty house.

It was cold out and damp and his coat was a thin one, but it his house wasn’t far - about half an hour from Danny’s. When he got in his mum, swooped down to take off his coat and kiss him warmly. His sisters squabbled by the fire and the whole place seemed so full of noise and people that Max could hardly squeeze himself onto the sofa by his dad.

“You’re home early. How was Danny?”

“He was ok. I think I made him cross when I said we should play real life cowboys. He said that was for little kids.” He didn’t mention what Danny had said about poor people.

“But real life cowboys are the best! You could have built a fort!”

Max grinned “that’s what I said!”

Max’s dad grabbed the clothes horse from the kitchen and shook out the patched blanket from the end of the sofa. “Yeeehaww! Which of you varmints will help build a fort to keep out them Injuns?” At this the already crowded room became a flurry of activity.

At number 9 Danny’s computer sang again into the darkening room

Wearing his favourite cowboy pyjamas, David was on all fours by the side of his bed peering underneath into the darkened jungle of fluff, discarded comics, odd escaped socks and old tissues. He swooped his arm to and fro until the back of his hand made contact with the object of his search. Crawling backwards from the bed, he pulled a large lever arch file with him as he came. The file was David’s secret, it was the place he could gather his wildest dreams of Lego and scalextric sets; of the latest premier league home kit or of giant trampolines in the garden for all the kids in the neighbourhood to be jealous. Carefully cut out pictures from the pages of the Argos catalogue had been glued to pieces of plain paper. Their edges rolled up from the pages as they had been well thumbed over the year. Pulling his school bag off the peg on the back of his bedroom door, David delved in to retrieve a wad of freshly salvaged images. Right at the top of the pile was a picture that had been ripped from a discarded copy of PCMag he had leafed through while waiting patiently in the doctor’s surgery. His little brother had been getting all the attention after screaming the house down for days because of glue ear.

In fact, ever since Louis had arrived, his parents were stretched to the limit trying to juggle shift patterns and make ends meet. This was why David’s file was to be his secret. Even at the age of six, he could see how life was prematurely aging his parents and pulling at their relationship as more and more demands were being made.

Each year his parents started saving for the ‘big day’ in January, hiding away toys bought in new year sales, making stocking fillers throughout the year to try and compete with the trinkets his friends would surely be showing off at school after the holidays. David knew how hard they tried and felt a weight of responsibility not to add to their burden. He carefully laid the picture of the latest xbox on top of a fresh sheet of paper and reached for his craft glue. Mark Davies in class C had got one for his birthday earlier in the year and he became the most popular kid in school overnight. Knowing there was no hope of ever having his own, David placed the freshly bonded image at the front of the folder. He stroked the picture flat and carefully closed the lever arch mechanism. Sliding the file back under his bed, David hurried down to breakfast. He could hear his dad in the hallway putting his coat away after returning from a nightshift.

‘Morning scruff’.

With a large bag concealed behind his back, David’s dad ruffled the top of his son’s head as he whizzed past. He greeted his wife with a kiss. ‘Mission complete’ he said and winked at her beaming face.

Joy believed in signs. So when Jamie shoved his sister into the TV cabinet, sending the Xbox crashing onto the floor, case cracked and innards spilling out, she took it as a sign. She resisted the urge to shout, instead sending the kids upstairs to finish getting ready for school whilst she scooped up the broken games console. She couldn't afford to replace it. Maybe Greg could fix it? She’d ask him on Saturday when he collected the kids for his weekly visit.

Halfway to school and the heavens opened. Another sign. Joy had left her umbrella at home, again, and they were all soaked through by the time they got into the playground. Joy could feel the weight of disapproval from the other mums, their kids all decked out in the latest Boden raincoats and matching wellies. Staring down the Boden mums, Joy grabbed a kiss from both of her children ‘Have a great day’ she breathed in their damp sweet smell, ‘Love you guys’, but they were gone, lost in a sea of book bags and lunchboxes.

Bad luck always came in three’s, so when Mr Price summoned Joy into his office before lunch, she was hoping for bad news, willing her quota to filled as quickly as possible. Instead, he praised her on her recent efforts at work, offered her a small pay rise, and management of the much coveted Johnson’s account. Joy didn't know whether to laugh or cry, so instead clutched the Johnson’s lever arch case file to her chest, whispered a thank you to her boss and returned to her desk.

Her sandwich from the cafe at lunchtime was disappointingly sparse on chicken, but even Joy knew that was pushing it as a ‘bad sign.’ The bus was unusually punctual and she managed to get a seat for first time in as long as she could remember. Even at the hospital, everyone was, for once, punctual and efficient and polite. By the time Joy was seated in the chair opposite her oncologist, she already knew what he was going to say. Bad luck. In three’s. Always.

She decided to take a taxi home. Sod the expense. The meter wasn’t working properly so the driver let her off the fare ‘Consider it your lucky day’ he smiled at her. Her mum had picked the kids up after school, and as Joy walked up the front path she could see them all, Mum, Poppy and Jamie, cuddled up on the sofa, laughing at cartoons on the TV. Joy felt a lump rise in her throat but swallowed it back down. They all turned as she opened the door, the kids jumping up and running to her, arms clutching at her legs. Her Mum stared at her, hands clutched to her chest, ‘Well?’ she asked.

‘All good.’ Joy nodded, the tears she had held back all day finally surfacing, spilling down her cheeks. ‘All good.’

‘Mummy, mummy’ Jamie yanked on Joy’s arm. ‘I ripped my cowboy jimjams, look’ He pointed to a small split in the seam of his favourite pyjamas. Joy reached down and scooped him up. ‘Don’t worry baby, mummy can fix that. It looks like you’ve had all your bad luck for the day.’

Grace around the world

We were having one of usual Saturday morning late breakfasts – scrambled eggs and coffee, followed by fret over our finances. The latest problem – the house lease sold out from under us by a council desperate for cash. It was infuriating. Not that we could have afforded the twenty thousand stipulated, but we knew where we stood with the council. This faceless company that bought the lease didn’t need worry about lurid local headlines. They could jack up the ground rent till we were forced to sell, and as per the lease, give them first refusal. In a years’ time there would be luxury flats where our ramshackle Edwardian townhouse had stood.

We sent Sam to the door when the postman arrived. He came back staggering under the weight of a cardboard box that said Xbox on it.

‘Remember the last “Xbox” that came to this house?’ I said.

‘Har har,’ Sam said. ‘It has a letter. It says “The Family Dixon”’.

Five years ago ten year old Sam had been badgering us non-stop for one. The look on his face when our next door neighbour – Grace – was stood at the front door clutching a cardboard box with the picture of an Xbox on it. The look on his face when he got the box open.

Six A4 ring binders.

I still get a smile out of it.

And the box was from Grace, I recognised the handwriting, the precise copperplate letters in black ink. She was on a cruise, six months around the world. It was bound to something exotic in the box. We all took turns in making suggestions, a shrunken head being the leading contender.

The letter read:

Greetings, from Switzerland. I am dead. Please enjoy the contents of your box. Yours sincerely, Grace Edwards.

Well. That was a morning killer.

We had lived next door to Grace ever since we had bought the tumbledown place, nearly fifteen years ago. She brought across tea as we were moving in, she babysat and she would often say – very loudly – how good it was to have some life in the street if ever the neighbours called by to complain about cowboys and Indians played too loud, or parties gone on a little too late.

Sam said, ‘Maybe it’s her head.’

That got him sent from the room, but wife’s look to me said we couldn’t rule it out.

I slit open the Sellotape seals then eased the box open at arm’s length. Inside were six bricks, each layered in bubble wrap to stop them knocking together.

I looked at my wife’s blank face.

Through the doorway floated Sam’s voice. ‘Now you know how it feels.’

I unwrapped each brick. I inspected them carefully for joins. They were six ordinary red bricks, very much like the kind that had stood for years in a pile by the side of our house where part of the wall had fallen.

‘Maybe that fallen wall really did annoy her,’ I said.

From the box my wife took a thick wedge of white paper that I’d taken to be packaging. It looked old, lined with spidery hand writing. At the top it clearly said “Edwards Close”, and then our house number.

‘It’s our lease,’ my wife said. ‘She bought it for us.’