No matter how upset or worried you were, you had to come in, smile, and you would instantly be distracted by Hamish McGill’s underpants mysteriously appearing on the outside of his trousers after PE, or Robbie’s poster paint incident, or getting everyone to put their hands on their heads, or correcting math while simultaneously preventing a muddy scuffle over the toy elephant, so big you could ride it, that Fintan and Colton had kindly donated the Christmas before last, which unfortunately was so much better than all their other handed-down toys and games that it caused World War III at least twice a week.

So she threw herself into school life as usual, trying not to think about what was going on in Glasgow, two hundred miles to the south.

Except of course Ash was in her class, and every so often she’d look up and he’d be eyeing her anxiously. He sidled up after break.

“My daddy is away.”

“I know,” she said.

She was concerned, always, about giving Saif’s boys special treatment. The problem was, what if, as in Ash’s case, they patently needed special treatment? And it was wrong not to give him a bit of extra fuss, even if she was absolutely terrified of giving herself away or stepping out of line. Why, why, why was it all so complicated?

“But he’s coming back soon?”

Ash nodded. “Soon,” he said. “I don’t like it when he’s away.”

“I know,” said Lorna. “But you like Mrs. Laird, don’t you?”

“I like sausage rolls,” said Ash. Mrs. Laird, their babysitter, was one of the great bakers of the island, and she did indeed make a mean sausage roll.

“Well then,” said Lorna. “It won’t be for long.”

“It will,” said Ash gloomily. “I’ll be sleeping. But. I won’t really be sleeping!”

“I am sure,” said Lorna, putting out the rubber cement, at which Ash’s expression perked up a bit. When you were six and rubber cement was coming out, you knew it wasn’t extra math. Even a downhearted child could be perked up momentarily by some rubber cement.

“I was thinking,” said Lorna, pragmatically changing the subject, “would you like to help me hand out the glitter?”

“Glitter!” Ash almost forgot himself. “Yes, I would.”

“Okay then,” said Lorna, as the bell went for the end of break. “And, Ash,” she said, as he took the little plastic canisters containing the tantalizing shiny dots of silver and gold, red and green, which were going to decorate their Christmas pictures, which in turn would wallpaper the entire entrance of the school.

“Uh-huh?” he said, turning the glitter containers upside down and back again, enthralled.

“Your dad isn’t going to mind you waiting up for him. Not at all.”

“Look! Agot! I has glitter!” Ash was already shouting as his partner in crime came charging in, pink-faced, from outside. Immediately she pulled up, furious.

“I do glitter. I help.”

“Just let Ash do it, Agot, please,” said Lorna, who was so fond of lovely laid-back Innes and didn’t know quite how to break it to him that his beautiful daughter—and her best friend Flora’s beloved niece—was a stealth hellion.