The Sons of Scarlatti. John McNally

great,” Finn said, having to pick them up one by one.

      “There should be some fishing rods back here…” said Al, wading through a decade’s worth of accumulated junk at the back of the garage.

      Finn had been on a similar junk hunt on his first summer at Grandma’s, which was how he’d discovered Al’s boyhood bug-collecting gear behind a defunct Mini. He and Al had set up the lamp trap, a glowing, tent-like apparatus, in the back garden, and stayed up half the night collecting and cataloguing the multitude of insects drawn towards the light.

      Grandma hadn’t seen it as a proper way to mourn the passing of a mother, a sister, a daughter. But then they were male, and men were different when it came to emotions, especially powerful emotions, and if arranging dead insects helped them to cope then so be it. She also knew her daughter, wherever she was, would be looking down in approval at the two of them forming such an odd, unbreakable bond.

      The second of Mum’s Big Three Rules for Finn was: “Be yourself.” Finn had never really figured out what that meant, but he’d ended up with 108 different species of native insects in various states of disrepair mounted on two A3 cards above the fireplace in his room.

      Bombus lucorum, Bombus terrestris, Bombus lapidarius (bumblebees that sounded so good it made your mouth go funny); leafcutter, miner and carpenter bees; churchyard, mealworm and common oil beetles; big stags, small stags; seven-spot and eyed ladybirds; sawfly (you should see their wings), blowfly, housefly, horn fly; fantastic, impossible dragonflies and damsels (some in distress); moths upon moths – almost every type of hawk; and butterflies fit for an art gallery – tortoiseshell and fritillary, red admiral and Camberwell beauty, swallowtail and green-veined whites.

      The writing on the labels was childish and some of the pins and mounts had been knocked off, but the samples themselves still looked fantastic. He knew everything about them; he’d read every book and article. He could recite all their names and characteristics.

      Finn wondered if his interest was just natural or whether he was trying to force a connection back to his parents, both of whom had been scientists (he’d lost his father, Ethan, in a laboratory accident just after he was born, his mother more recently to cancer). Either way it felt right. And when Al asked him what he’d like to do on his ‘week off’ from Grandma, Finn immediately knew he wanted to add to the collection.

      “Great idea. How about the blind insects of the Pyrenees?” said Al. “Freakish, eyeless Ungeheuer found in the deepest mountain caverns, evolved over twenty million years of total darkness!”

      “The Pyrenees?”

      “It’s a mountain range between France and Spain.”

      “I know where it is, but Grandma…”

      “Never tell Grandma anything; it only worries her and then you can’t shut her up.”

      Before Finn knew it, the trip was on.

      “Let’s hit the road,” said Al, reappearing from the back of the garage with two fishing rods and a jar of old tobacco pipes. “We’ve got to get to the ferry by three.”

      Finn snapped his fingers and Yo-yo sprang into the tiny back of the Mangusta, delighted because everything delighted Yo-yo. Bathtime. Being locked outside in the rain. Being shouted at. And right now – being taken to certain incarceration in kennels.

      En route, Al called the secretary at Finn’s school, Mrs Jennings, claiming, with a completely straight face, to be consultant dermatologist “Dr Xaphod Schmitten, that’s X-A-P-H—”, and that he was rushing Infinity Drake to his private clinic because of “an acute case of seborrhoeic dermatitis”.

      “It is absolutely vital to initiate wire-brushing.” If everything went well, the boy would be discharged in a week, Al continued, though he might be totally bald, and if so what was the school policy on “the wearing of a headscarf and/or wig for medical reasons”? The secretary, alarmed, put him on hold to consult a higher authority, then came back on the line to ask if she could just take his name again. “Of course,” said Al, “Herr Doktor Xaphod Schmitten, that’s X-A-P—” and then pretended to be cut off by poor reception.

      “That ought to do it.”

      He screeched to a halt in front of the kennels.

      “Ditch the mutt. Go.”

      Finn took a deep breath. “Come on, Yo-yo.”

      The dog sprang out of the back seat and followed Finn up to the kennels, excited by the other doggy noises and smells. Once shut inside his cage though, Yo-yo sat on his haunches and howled.

      Mum had got him for Finn as soon as she realised she was ill. It was obvious therapy, but it had worked.

      Finn touched his chest. Scratched the stone. Although he couldn’t get his head round the concept of his mum’s ‘soul’, he’d long ago decided that if there was such a thing then it lived in the stone that hung from a leather tie around his neck. It looked dull and ordinary, but in fact it was a rock called spharelite that his mum had always worn. When you scratched it – with your fingernail, with anything – it would literally glow. Triboluminescence it was called, but not even science could tell you quite how it worked, or why. Which was in part why Finn loved it. It was mysterious and it was scientific and it had been his mum’s and it had a great name. If he ever had children, one of them was going to be called Spharelite Triboluminescence.

      Finn reached in and gave Yo-yo’s neck one last rub.

      Yo-yo thought the cruel ‘lock-up-your-dog’ game was over and rolled on his back, offering his tummy to be tickled.

      What an idiot.

      It was at times like this that Finn remembered his mum’s third and final Big Rule, delivered in her last days alive when she hadn’t seemed like she was dying at all and had showered him with affection and practical instruction.

      “If you’re ever in doubt, work out what feels right in your heart of hearts then, whatever happens… just keep going.”

      Al watched, appalled, as a minute later Finn marched out of the kennels – followed by Yo-yo.

      “What…?”

       Yap!

      Finn got in the front, Yo-yo hopped in the back.

      “Mum…” Finn started to say – and Al knew what was coming: “Mum wouldn’t just leave him like this.”

      “Why you little…”

      It was an emotionally loaded, totally absurd unwritten rule between them that, if either Finn or Al invoked his mother, the other had to obey. The rule was stone crazy and wide open to abuse (“My sister would’ve loved you to make me another cup of tea…” “My mother would have loved FIFA 14 on PSP…”), but it was not one Finn ever felt he could revoke. It needed Al to be the grown-up and break the spell, to put an end to the madness, but that just wasn’t Al.

      So, six minutes later, they found themselves outside the church.

      Christabel Coles, vicar of the Church of St James and St John in the village of Langmere, Bucks, had been fond of Finn ever since – in the middle of his mother’s funeral, aged eleven – he held up his hand to bring the service to a halt and demanded to know exactly what a ‘soul’ was and if it did exist then exactly where was his mother right now? Christabel had paused, then said, “Good question,” and sat down in her vestments, ignoring the packed congregation, to discuss it with him. It had been interesting, illuminating and inconclusive, though it had helped both of them to get through the day and they’d become great friends and indulged in many such conversations since, often in the company of this… blessed dog, which Christabel didn’t have the heart to tell Finn she found among the most trying of all God’s creatures.

      Finn argued