You didn’t care much about my drawings that I ripped up, Ornella, but Mrs Parish was mortified. She collected the pieces and tried to put them back together with sticky tape. When I ripped up my pictures, it hurt her, physically, like I had cut myself on the arm on purpose or pulled hair out of my head. Mother thought it was funny. She laughed. ‘He’s having a little rage!’ she said. She laughed so hard once that I picked up my glass of orange juice and poured it over my head. I don’t know why. Except there was nothing else I could do. I had no other weapons. I sat there, dripping with orange juice and fuming, and Mother was cross because it meant she had to stop what she was doing and run me a bath and wash my hair.

All the adults were trying so hard and doing so much for me. You said I was luckier than other kids because I was not stuck all the time in one boring place and I got so many birthday presents.

But I was angry. I wanted to kick the footy after school with George Zigouras and Callum Webster. I wanted to practise with the stumps and ball and cricket bat that Father Christmas brought me. I wanted to try out Callum’s glider. I wanted to be part of the neighbourhood. Instead, I kicked the football by myself at Park Orchards. I hit a tennis ball against Ornella’s neighbour’s fence with my cricket bat until the lady who lived there came out and said to stop it cause I was giving her a headache.

I didn’t have after-school friends, but at the Parishes’ I had Paddy Cow.