I brush my teeth in front of the mottled old mirror and tell myself again that getting Mum back is more important than the awfulness of lying to Dad and Vince. I wish I could tell Dad everything. I want to spill it all out and for him to hug me and reassure me that things will be okay. But I know I’m the only one who can get Mum back and make things okay again.

That’s if I pass all the tests, including the big one that I know is coming. When will Sylvie give me the darkness test? What if I don’t pass it? What if I’m too scared?

Dad’s humming ‘Zip-a-Dee-Doo-Dah’ in the men’s bathroom next door. It’s the lullaby he sang to me as a baby, and still sings every so often. I try to hum along, but my throat is all jammed with tears.

One day, Sylvie gives me Mum’s battered old Welsh dictionary and sends me away to come up with my own simple spell, which – against her rules – I do with Kit. We decide that I’ll transform a bowl of river mud into a chocolate cake. On my first try, cake explodes all over the inside of Kit’s van, which leaves Li Lin deeply unimpressed, and which is rather hard to explain. After two hours of cleaning, we try again. This time, there’s a glorious bursting and blooming sensation in my chest and the spell works beautifully. Then Kit and I make ourselves sick eating cake.

Three weeks after Mum disappeared, Dad wakes me at dawn. It’s time to take down the big top; time for the circus to move on.

As the first sun slants through the fig trees, Kit and I join the line of people rolling up the red- and-yellow striped big top canvas. Claudie, wearing her red clown nose, buzzes around in the forklift, picking up the bundles of tent and slotting them into the truck.

I hear mutterings as we work. Some people want Sylvie to stay. Others want her to leave. There’s lots of discussion about the time – years ago – when Sylvie took over for a year while Mr Potts was sick, and she lost lots of the circus’s money. And people are confused about why Mum hasn’t come back. Everyone’s generally a bit snippy and short with each other.

A few hours later, all there is to show for our time here are big patches of dead, flattened grass. While Dad’s changing a tyre on the Land Rover, Sylvie says a quick spell and bangs a stick into the spot where Mum disappeared.