Granddad looks down at the box like he’s disappointed, but why couldn’t he get something more exciting, like a football or the new Spider-Man DVD or a BMX bike? I should know better. Even when Grandma was alive, my birthday presents were always something ‘practical’ like a new duvet or a woolly jumper. Mum would make me wear it all day, just so I didn’t upset Grandma, even though I’d get really hot and itchy because my birthday is in the middle of the summer.

Granddad pushes past me in the hall and is headed for the dining room.

‘Clear the table,’ he says.

‘I will,’ I say, ‘but I’m still not playing.’

Granddad sighs. ‘Felix, I know you don’t like coming here so much now,’ he says with a sad look in his eyes, ‘but I am trying to do something with you.’

‘I do, Granddad. It’s just . . .’ I look back at the list and see if I’ve missed anything, but it gets worse every time I look. It’s not just me who would think that – none of my friends would want to shred paper or make Rouladen, whatever that is. I think of saying that to Granddad, but he’s now sitting in his chair flicking through the pages of his chess book like he’s given up on me.

I sit down at the table and turn a page of Of Mice and Men, just to make Granddad think I’m actually reading, but I don’t know why I bother because he’s not turned a page over either. Maybe he’s as fed up as I am and he’s gone to sleep with his eyes open. I saw a documentary about dolphins doing that – one side of their brains goes to sleep while the other side stays awake so they remember to breathe. I think it was a documentary – or maybe it was in Finding Nemo. I wish I could do something with Granddad, but there’s nothing we like doing together. If Grandma made a list, she’d fill it with twenty things. Twenty brilliant things, like taking me to the cinema and a coach trip to Legoland. I’m too old for that now, but if she was alive I bet she’d take me to Thorpe Park.

I look back at Granddad’s list.

Ten things I’d like to teach Felix.

It’s bad enough having extra lessons at school without having them at home. Ten! TEN! Why couldn’t he have just made five? One even?