And that’s when I confirm it. The wild curly hair. That’s Mum. And the younger girl must be her sister.

‘Mama, she hit me!’ The younger girl, my Aunt Zaina, pouts, showing off her sore arm.

Mum, or I guess Aminah, rolls her eyes. ‘Zaina stole my bracelet,’ she says, both of them speaking a mixture of English and Arabic.

I look at the bracelet in my hands. It’s gold with white pearl beads and an Arabic inscription.

Aminah.

‘It’s here!’ I say, waving it in front of their faces. But there’s no point. I’m invisible to them all.

‘And why would she do that?’ My grandmother, ‘Mama’, asks, her voice as sharp as her features. ‘It has your name on it.’

‘Why don’t you ask her?’ Aminah replies, and I can’t help but smile because she’s just like the Mum I know.

‘I didn’t steal it, Mama,’ Zaina insists. ‘She lost it.’

Mama turns to Zaina now. ‘Go inside and ask your aunt if she wants more tea,’ she orders. Zaina nods right away. ‘And close the door behind you.’

Mama turns to Aminah. ‘Where are you going?’

In the time it took for Mama to address Zaina, Aminah had tried to sneak off downstairs. She spins round now like a clumsy ballerina, and faces Mama.

‘Are you a child?’ Mama asks.

Aminah shakes her head.

‘How old are you?’

‘Thirteen,’ she mutters.

Like me.

‘Then –’ Mama pauses – ‘you know it’s wrong to hit your sister.’

‘But, Mama, Zaina was the one who –’

Mama puts her hand up to silence Aminah, and her voice stops dead.

‘Zaina is younger than you, Aminah. You can’t use her as an excuse.’

‘Sorry.’ Aminah sniffs, and I see tears in her eyes.

‘And you lost your bracelet.’

Aminah doesn’t argue back this time.

‘I won’t buy you nice things any more if you can’t look after them.’

Mama’s not yelling, but she doesn’t need to.

‘Sorry, Mama,’ Aminah squeaks again, eyes trained on her feet.

I don’t recognize this side of Mum. She looks scared and mouse-like.

‘You’re back from school for one day . . . one day,’ Mama says, her voice echoing across the hall despite her tiny frame, ‘and already you cause trouble. I wish sometimes your father would take you travelling with him over the summer. Then I wouldn’t have to deal with all of this.’ She sighs exasperatedly. It’s an offhand remark, kind of like the ones Mum makes sometimes, but I can almost feel the burn of it on Aminah’s heart.

Aminah’s tears fall freely now. She runs down the stairs, out of the house and into the scorching heat of the courtyard.

I follow her, barely keeping up. I want to give her the bracelet and tell her she hasn’t lost it after all.