We rarely teach them the one rule that would protect them from the most common danger they will actually face, which is not the stranger but the trusted adult who asks them to keep a secret.

Because the whole machinery of harm to children, in almost every form it takes, runs on precisely the thing that was done to Theo: a trusted grown-up, someone the child loves, who says this is our secret, and you must not tell, and something bad will happen if you do.

That sentence is the master key.

It is how nearly every serious harm to a child is kept hidden, and it works because children are taught, everywhere, that keeping secrets is a form of goodness and loyalty and love.

Theo was taught the antidote at five, at painful cost, and I would not wish the cost on any child, but I am fiercely glad he has the antidote, and I have made sure he will never lose it.