It’s Saturday. I don’t know what time it is, but it can’t be too early. I can hear two of the younger kids outside in the garden chasing each other with water guns. There’s a knock on my bedroom door and someone yells that there’s a parcel been delivered for me.

I make myself get out of bed. There’s a kid called Georgie here who likes to break into other folks’ post. I’m not in the mood for an argument. I go down and collect the parcel. It’s a cardboard box, maybe the size of one of them small suitcases on wheels. When I pick it up, it’s lighter than I expect. I turn it over. When I see the return address on it, I think about giving the box to Georgie so he can mash it up. But then one of those knots in my stomach loosens a bit, because I think I know what’s inside.

It’s from Annie and she sure as hell knows how to wrap up something secure. Aliens could come and blast the Earth into pieces, but the tape on this box would stay stuck. It’s like she’s used two rolls of that brown shiny parcel tape and wrapped it round the whole thing twice. Then another time, just to be sure.

Then, finally, I can open it wide. Annie has sent packs of knitting needles, plastic ones, all sizes, and wool. So much wool! It’s like she’d gone into a yarn shop and said, “One of those, one of those and one of those, please.”

The wool’s different colours and different thicknesses. I count three blues, a dark green like glass bottles, a thin shiny black with silver threads, some red. I spread it all out on the floor and touch the balls, one at a time. It’s decent wool, not stuff from the bottom of a sale bin. I know it’s gonna slide over my needles, so soft I hardly know it’s there. Before I realise, there’s a thread of baby blue wool between my fingers and thumb and I’m casting on. I don’t know what I want to make and my fingers are all clumsy. But as I lay down the rows it’s like that heavy sack I’m in opens a little bit and I can see some light.

When I finally put down my needles, I notice an envelope at the bottom of the box. I open it and there’s a card from Annie. It has a dinosaur on the front – one of the flying ones that look like a duck got mixed up with a bat. Annie sent a whole load of other dinosaur pictures too. She says she’s sorry about everything that happened and that this time the blanket will be even better.