The hammer rang once. A spark jumped off the anvil and did not go out. It waited. They followed.

It rolled into the print shop and settled on the big black press. It was Monday morning, before school.

The newsroom chair had a mended leg, bound with wire. A tiny hammer was scratched on the seat.

Bran came in holding his phone up high. "Have you seen this?"

On the screen was a photo of a red fox, curled up asleep on the blue beanbag in the school library. Its tail was over its nose.

"Fake," said Bran. "Obviously. Somebody made it on a computer. Everybody's saying it."

Beto laughed. "A fox in the library!"

Danya did not laugh. He was proud of one thing above all. He never fell for rumours.

"I'm not falling for this," he said. He wrote it on the board for Friday's front page. FAKE FOX PHOTO.

A bright-eyed crow was perched on the old photo desk. He held a pair of sliding wooden frames in his claws. His name was Uncrop.

"How do you know it's fake?" asked Uncrop.

"Because it looks fake," said Danya. "A fox would never come into a school."

"Fake is a claim too," said Uncrop. "You are telling your readers something. Have you checked it?"

Danya opened his mouth. Then he shut it. Last week he had asked Bran, "How do we know?" Now Bran could ask him.

Is the fox real? Make your guess before you read on.

An octopus with cards on her belt slid four tablets across the desk. It was Verify.

"Open four tabs, never one," said Verify. "Let's look around it."

She searched for the photo. If somebody had copied it from somewhere else, an older copy would show up. None did. The first time it appeared anywhere was 7:12 on Monday morning, on the school's own page.

A magpie in a press vest tilted his head. It was Source. "Who would actually know?" he said. "Whoever took it."

They went to the school office. "Oh, that was Mr Haddad," said the secretary. "He unlocks the library at five past seven."

Mr Haddad was oiling the hinges of the library door.

"Yes, I took it," he said. "I nearly dropped my keys."

"Did you take any others?" asked Uncrop.

Mr Haddad scrolled on his phone. "Just this one. I stepped back to show the whole room."

The wider photo showed the beanbag, the shelves, and the window. The window was open about a hand's width. On the white sill were five small, muddy paw prints, one after another.

"What's outside the frame?" said Uncrop quietly. "Usually, the answer."

"I left that window open on Friday," said Mr Haddad. "For the heat. My mistake."

"Where did it go?" asked Beto.

"Out the way it came, I expect," said Mr Haddad. "It was gone by the time I came back with the cleaner."

Danya looked at the paw prints for a long time.

Back in the newsroom, Danya rubbed out FAKE FOX PHOTO.

He wrote the true headline.

A REAL FOX SLEPT IN OUR LIBRARY

He put both photos under it: the fox, and the window with the paw prints. Under the wide one he wrote: Photo: Mr Haddad, caretaker.

"I was sure," he said to Beto. "Being sure felt like being careful."

Bran came in on Friday and read the paper. "Huh," he said. "I told everyone it was fake."

"So did I," said Danya. "Nearly."

Beto pinned a print of the wide photo to the newsroom wall.

Back on the Green

The spark dimmed to a warm dot and settled back on the anvil. The Green was just the Green again.

That weekend, Danya's little cousin said she had seen a hedgehog in the shed.

Danya did not say "no you didn't". He said, "Show me."