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was daft coming down to play with them alone?
    Would his new Scottish pal be his ex-pal?

Chapter 7
    Pete shouldn’t have worried.
    “Oh man! Classics: Henrik Larsson, Roy Keane, Pelé… man !”
    As soon as Peter tipped out the first few figures from his bag, Dunny delved into the furthest corner of the shelter and dragged out a box.
    Best, Messi, Dalglish, Charlton… Pete couldn’t believe it. Dunny had a whole team of moulded plastic football stars. This was fate.
    “Let’s have a first-round play-off.” Dunny was already unrolling a felt football pitch. “My pals only want to play Nintendo Wii FIFA. Indoors.” He was pinning the felt’s corners down with stones he scooped from another box. “Pity it’s so dark.”
    “Not any more.”
    Pete flicked on Dad’s torch under Dunny’s chin. With the floor of the den lit up clearly for the first time, Pete could see that much of the space under the benches stored boxes, all full of plastic football players.
    “These yours too?” asked Pete.
    Dunny nodded without looking up. “Stash them here so Wee Stookie doesn’t muddle them up. Doesn’t come down here on his own. Too spooky for him, whooooo .”
    Dunny placed a tiny football in the centre of hispitch.
    “Must sneak down sometimes, though,” he said, “cos my teams keep getting messed about. Dead annoying, so it is.”
    “Maybe someone else is playing with them,” Pete said. “ I ’d sneak in if I knew all this was down here: Man U, Barcelona…”
    “…Brazil 2014. That’s going to be a collector’s item. And that one…” Dunny was pointing at a tub tucked almost out of sight.
    Pete reached in to drag it out and then yelped. Leapt back. A net of cobwebs was spun across the heads of the Celtic Seville Team 2003, and when he yanked his hand away, sticky web was left clinging to his fingers. Pete had to force himself not to panic as he scrabbled in his rucksack.
    “Cobwebs.” Pete shuddered, cleaning his fingers with the cloth he’d brought. Dunny was gawping at him, mouth open. Pete didn’t care. “Creep me out.” His heart was racing.
    “ Ni -gel. Canny hurt you,” Dunny said, but not in an unkind way. “Hang on.”
    One by one Dunny picked up each Seville player and screwed his plastic head clean against the front of his top. “All gone,” he said, checking over the figures as he lined them up. “Hey, but see if you hate cobwebs that bad?” He puffed a tiny fly from Paul Lambert’s shoulder. “Man, no way you want to touch the notebook I found. Pure covered in them. Dead beasties squished between the pages. I just picked it up…” Dunny was pinching his nose with one arm and holding the other away from him the same way Dadcarried Jenny’s really dirty nappies to the bin.
    “I’d’ve chucked it,” Pete said, hoping Dunny had. “Why didn’t you?”
    Dunny rearranged his back line before he answered. “Well, it was written in here,” he said.
    “So what?” shrugged Pete.
    “That’s what Mum said. Should’ve seen her face when I brought it into the house. ‘Throw that out, it’s filthy!’ You’d’ve thought it was a dead rat or something. Right let’s go: kick-off.” Dunny slid Henrik Larsson up to the ball and flicked him.
    “Straight in the net. One–nil. That’s what I’m talkin’ about!” Dunny jumped to his feet and side-skipped a whooping lap of honour round the den.
    Pete felt robbed. “Could at least have blown a whistle.”
    “Sorry.” Dunny was reaching under the bench again.
    For a whistle; good , Pete was thinking.
    Instead Dunny held up one of the freezer bags people cram their toiletries into at airport security.
    “Didn’t throw the notebook out because it was written in here.” Dunny let the bag swing in the torchlight. “During the Second World War.”
    Pete didn’t know why, but a shiver ran through him. “How d’you know?”
    “Cos I’ve read it.” Dunny unzipped the bag and let the book inside slide to the floor. “And