It was already dark so I couldn’t tell whether Mum looked tired or strained as she drove towards Bear’s Pad. I asked her how she was, but all I got was a quick ‘fine’ before she fired a stack of questions at me about my day at work and the journey home; a clear sign that she didn’t want to talk. Hopefully it was only in front of Logan and she’d open up when he’d gone to bed. Something had definitely happened, though, because the atmosphere in the car was seriously tense.

‘Logan’s in bed, my phone’s on silent, the TV’s off, I’ve made the drinks and you have my undivided attention.’ I handed Mum her favourite teddy bear mug and curled up on the sofa with a cold can of Lilt later that evening.

Guilt was plastered all over her face as she sighed. ‘There was an incident with Logan. He’s pretty upset about it.’ She wouldn’t look me in the eye. ‘It was nothing, really. Just a silly misunderstanding.’

‘Go on…’

She wrapped both hands round her mug and blew on her tea. ‘His cub pack are having a sleepover in the Scout hut and he needed to pay a tenner towards it. School are doing a couple of trips and he needed a tenner for them too. He’d been nagging me for ages, saying the deadline was due, but I kept forgetting to bring any cash home.’

Mum fell silent and stared into her tea. I took a sip from my can, wondering where the story was going because, so far, it all seemed pretty normal. Mum never had any cash on her and I remembered always having to nag her for bus fares and school dinner money when I was a kid. Perhaps she’d snapped at him for going on about it too much. Logan could be pretty persistent about stuff but, then again, couldn’t most ten-year-olds?

Finally looking up, she said, ‘I left Bear With Me early one evening to do the banking but I bumped into someone I knew on the way, got chatting, and the bank had closed by the time I got there. I left the money in my bag in the usual place in the hall. When I got round to trying again at the bank a couple of days later, I was £50 short. Next thing I know, Logan’s handing me slips confirming payment for the sleepover and the school trips.’

I gasped. ‘You think he stole £50? Logan wouldn’t do that.’

She stared into her tea again.

‘Oh, Mum! Don’t say you actually accused him of stealing.’

‘What else could I do? He’s nagging me for £20 then, next minute, the trips are paid for and I’m £50 short. It had to be him.’

‘But Logan’s never done anything like that. He wouldn’t.’