‘But I don’t feel faint. I can’t remember feeling this well for ages. I’m not tired, I can eat normally, 18 and there’s no pain. Plus, I’m sure my hair is getting shinier. Does it look shinier to you?’

I look at Mum’s long, dark hair and honestly, I have no idea. Who thinks about how shiny their mum’s hair is? No one, that’s who.

‘Yeah, I think it is. Definitely.’

Mum pulls the boxes of decorations in and we begin to unpack them, untangling lights and pulling off layers of bubble wrap. The TV is still showing the news, but they’re mostly boring on about all the SMARTtown stuff.

‘Straybridge won a competition to become the country’s first SMARTtown as part of a new scheme, receiving a huge financial investment in the areas of science and technology. Benefits to the town include solar panelling on all houses, and the opportunity to be the first place in the country to trial XGen’s cutting-edge phone and data services…’

Blah, blah, blah.

‘Isn’t the tree lovely?’ Mum says, smiling at it like it’s her favourite child.

‘It’s very tree-ish,’ I say, glancing up at it. ‘And big.’

‘It’s one of the special ones from Verge’s Garden Centre,’ she carries on, regardless of my lack of 19 interest. ‘You know they dig them up leaving enough of a root ball that they are still living, and can be replanted after Christmas. Isn’t that incredible?’

‘A living tree? Sure. Mind blowing.’

‘So they continue to produce oxygen. It was one of the things that helped us to win the SMARTtown investment.’

‘The cones on it are a weird shape,’ I say, reaching out to inspect one of them. It’s wider and rounder than normal pinecones, and the petal-slash-scale things are bigger, so it sort of looks like a rosebud made out of wood.

‘They’re special, aren’t they? They’ll begin to open up in a few days – the smell is supposed to be divine. Have you found the end of those lights yet?’

‘Yep.’ I pass it to her. Mum is a total weirdo about the decoration placement, so I mostly just pass her things while she puts them on the tree. Apparently, there is an exact right place for each one.

‘We have just received an update from the Straybridge police. They aren’t allowing anyone, reporters included, into the town. Anyone not within the town’s boundaries at this moment is being told to stay away.’ 20

We both look up to see images on the screen of police setting up roadblocks and turning cars around.

‘Why would they do that?’ Mum says, her arm frozen midway to hanging a crystal butterfly on a high branch.

‘Maybe they don’t think it was an accident, and they want to catch the person who did it.’