In the cubicle a man in uniform, a man with pale eyes and skin and hair, sits behind a sheet of glass. Again, this man studies our documents far longer than any of the other people that went before, and glances at us every so often, his eyes flickering up, down, up, up, down, up, like a machine tracking a pattern. I pray this man sees the truth of what is standing in front of him. Magda squeezes my hand so hard it feels as if the bones in my fingers might break. She’s wearing a bright smile that doesn’t stretch to her eyes, and I can see how tired she looks beneath that smile.

The man looks up and asks Magda a question in English. ‘How long are you staying?’ I understand his question. My mind whirls about like that spinning-top the boys and I were given one Christmas, and I can’t hear Magda’s answer, as the whirring inside my head is too loud.

My name is Nico. I am thirteen in two weeks and two days. I come from Moldova. My country is shaped like a bunch of grapes and no sea touches it. I shake my head. No. No. No – my name is Natasha Popescu, I am fifteen years old, from a village in Romania whose name I’ve forgotten. That’s ok. The country, the country is all they are interested in. Only answer the exact question you’re asked. The back of my throat tickles as I attempt to swallow and my eyes feel like they’re bulging from the effort of trying not to cough. I’m on holidays with my mama and papa. Uncle … a doctor … I can’t remember his name. What does Romania look like? It is next to my country and people there speak the same language as at home. Does Romania touch against the Black Sea? Will the man ask me about the black salty water? I try to remember what England looks like. There are no other countries around it – it’s floating in the sea. I wonder how it doesn’t sink and then I remember it’s because the water is salty. I would like to run into a body of water and put my head under, and wash out my head.

The man looks at me. ‘Is this your first time in England?’

I nod.

He nods back at me and waves us on. Again, they do not see the truth. Igor did not understand a word of what was said. He did not go to school, or if he did, he sat at the back and yanked the girls’ pigtails and pulled up their skirts, like Sergiu. We walk on, faster now, free of the slow-moving lines of people. No one speaks. Igor cannot read the signs and so is hurrying us in the wrong direction.

Magda stops him. ‘This way,’ she says.

He frowns, but follows.