In Penderick, the Witrands were playing dominoes. ‘This whole game is basically just chance, isn’t it?’ Sophie asked her father in a superior tone, confident that he, too, would be bored by such a trivial pastime. The whole holiday had been a bit boring, so far. They had done all the usual things: trips to the beach, ice creams, crab fishing, barbecues, lazy afternoons by the salt-water swimming pool. Yet for Sophie, none of this was quite as much fun as it used to be. Also, the itching between her legs wouldn’t go away. Terrified that it might be the onset of her first period, she kept dashing off to the bathroom to check; then, worried that her loo-trips were suspiciously frequent, she took to sliding a finger (under the table, behind a tree) down into her pants to see if it came up bloody. It didn’t, but she still felt repulsed by the faint glisten of moisture on her fingertip. When she couldn’t get to a tap to wash it off, she would hold the finger just in front of her mouth and allow a little gobbet of spittle to drip down onto it, then wipe it dry with a twist of her T-shirt.

‘Hang on…’ Mr Witrand was counting out dominoes. ‘Three … four … five…’ Then he turned over one of his tiles to reveal a one–two spot. ‘Actually, it’s not just chance. It’s quite interesting, really. Imagine you’ve just played this domino, and there are no other two spots out on the table.’

‘Dad, we can see your domino!’ Harriet objected.

James slid right down in his seat so that his chin rested on the edge of the table. ‘James, stop messing about,’ Mrs Witrand told him.

James made his eyes bulge horribly. ‘But I’m a headless man,’ he said, hoarsely, his throat constricted by the pressure from the table.

‘If you’re headless, how come I can see your head?’ Harriet wanted to know.

‘Francis,’ said Mrs Witrand, gently. ‘The others want to play. Now,’ she beamed round at her brood, ‘who’s got the double six?’

It was Sophie. She pushed the little tile over with her finger and flicked it out into the centre of the table, not bothering to straighten it when it came to rest at an angle.

‘Wow, well done, Sophie.’ Harriet was impressed.

‘Don’t be so dumb, it’s just luck,’ Sophie said crossly. ‘So you shouldn’t say well done. If I didn’t actually do anything. Which I didn’t.’