“The small boy and the witch lived in a static caravan surrounded on all four sides by high whitewashed walls topped with barbed wire. A few small things excepted, the narrow compartments of the caravan’s four beige rooms were all the boy knew of the world. He knew something about the sky, the square of day, night, sun, rain, snow, and cloud directly above the caravan. He knew something about crows, crows being croaky and black, because crows gathered in rows along the top of the whitewashed walls. The boy knew about woodlice too, picking them off the concrete floor of the caravan’s enclosure and enjoying very much the way they turned into hard grey balls in the palm of his hand;and he knew about the north wind.”
