For most of his life, Igor and his family have been on the run. Danger lurks around every corner - or so he's always been told. . . . When Igor was five, his father witnessed a terrible crime - and ever since, his whole family has been hunted by a foreboding figure bent on revenge, known only as the Lizard Man. They've lived in so many places, with so many identities, that Igor can't even remember his real name. But now he's twelve years old, and he longs for a normal life. He wants to go to school. Make friends. Stop worrying about how long it will be before his father hears someone prowling around their new house and uproots everything yet again. He's even starting to wonder - what if the Lizard Man only exists in his father's frightened mind? Slowly, Igor starts bending the rules he's lived by all his life - making friends for the first time, testing the boundaries of where he's allowed to go in town. But soon, he begins noticing strange things around them - is it in his imagination? Or could the Lizard Man be real after all?

Silver Birch Fiction nominee, 2022.