Everyone seemed to be watching us and I was happy because I thought our car had more style than any of the others. Several minutes went by before I realized that Marie was driving with her eyes closed. It really wasn’t going to be easy getting her to the end of the year without anyone noticing something was wrong. I almost brought the subject up, but then I chickened out.

Afterwards we walked through the fair, still unsteady on our feet from the ride. The lights from the carousels merged with the Christmas fairy lights. It was cold, and our breath came out in little frosty clouds. Suddenly, Marie stopped dead and squeezed my arm hard.

“Why don’t we go on the ghost train!”

She really seemed to enjoy the idea that we’d be scared together. I didn’t have the heart to refuse and I tried to look very chilled about it, but the truth is I couldn’t shake off sad thoughts that troubled me far more than all the ghosts in the world. I kept imagining Marie left all alone with her little suitcase in a specialist college for the blind – waving goodbye with no one there. I absolutely had to ask Haisam for advice: he was the only one who could help me see the whole thing more clearly. Then I stopped turning all this around in my mind, because the fluorescent skeletons were rearing up in front of us, wailing so alarmingly that Marie squeezed tightly up against me. I could feel her hair tickling my cheek. It was a good thing I’d remembered to shave. Then our car stopped for quite a long time. We could hear mournful sounds in the dark.

“I’m frightened of ghosts!” whispered Marie.

I had no time to answer because I could feel her mouth against mine. And she pressed so hard it felt like being gagged. I could feel her tongue swivelling about in all directions like a crank handle. I wanted to explode with laughter, but it seemed best to hold back. Just then, our car set off again and it was goodbye to the ghosts. We moved apart and went out into the light. We both felt slightly awkward, for obvious reasons. She was very pensive: I was sure she must be regretting it.

“You seem sad,” I said.

“No, not at all. It’s just that I wonder if we did it quite right. Last week, at the dentist, I read the instructions in a magazine, and I’m pretty sure it was right. But you know how it is with instruction manuals, everything always ends up back to front…”

“No. That was definitely the right way. In theory, at any rate.”

“And in practice?”

“I’ve no idea, I only knew the theory.”