‘Felix, I am watching the news. This is serious – people are in trouble.’

‘I know, I’m only asking.’

Granddad turns back to the TV. I think of asking him again, but he seems very worried about what is happening in Germany. I’d like to chat to him about it, but he hardly ever talks to me about his country. I think that’s a bit strange. I don’t know where he lived or worked. I don’t even know the city where he was born. The only time he talks about growing up is when he tells me how he met Grandma at a dance at Bühlers Balhaus, a famous dance hall in Berlin. Then his eyes light up like a disco ball. He says he noticed her because she was wearing a pink flowery dress, but most of all he remembers she was sitting on her own reading The Little Prince in the corner of the room. There is nothing before. My dad says that’s just Granddad being Granddad and no one can change him, but I find it weird that Granddad’s life only seemed to start when he was eighteen.

I rest my head on my hand and look around the room. It’s so dark and quiet that all I can hear is the sound of my breath and the ticking of the clocks. There are clocks everywhere. There’s a big wooden one on the mantelpiece, and another on the sideboard, and another on the shelf by the door, and there’s a giant grandfather clock with a pendulum, which knock-knock-knocks in the hall. It’s another hour until Jake is back. Maybe I could just go home and watch The Amazing Spider-Man, or play Fortnite on my PS4. No. I have to try. I need to work or otherwise he’ll tell Mum and Dad when they get back. They’ll get annoyed, but they’ll be even madder once they find out I’ve been sent home early again. Mum said I was running out of chances – and that was two weeks ago.

Granddad turns the TV off and picks up his giant chess book. It’s the thickest book I’ve ever seen, even thicker than the Bible, and Granddad seems to read a page of it every day.

I shuffle along the table so I can catch the tiny bit of sunlight shining through a gap in the curtains. My maths book is full of my scrawly blue ink, and in the margins Mr Andrews’s scrawly red. Every page seems to have more of his ink than mine. I blow out my cheeks. In the corner of my eye I see Granddad peering at me over the top of his book.

‘You okay?’ Like he’s telling me I am, not asking me a question.

‘Yes, Granddad,’ I nod.

He looks back at his book. He doesn’t understand how I feel, like everyone else.