We end up at the seaside and that makes me smile. It’s like the freshness is blowing the rest of the darkness away. The tide’s right out, so we’ve got plenty of space to lay out our food. Except, it’s like every seagull in the area has been on a call to his out-of-town mates inviting them over to feast. Man, we are mobbed by seagulls. Annie made this cheese and potato pie special for me, but as soon as she cuts a slice, one of these gangster birds swoops down and snatches it off her plate. I read somewhere that chickens are really dinosaurs, but, man, anyone who’s been close up to a seagull knows that these are the monsters.

We pack everything away, but we’re laughing. Annie’s asking me about where I’m living now and I tell her about all the other kids and then about school. She frowns then and says I should be in mainstream education. I’ve got so much potential, but I need it drawn out of me.

I don’t say nothing to that. It wasn’t like I was having loads of fun at the school I was at before. Then Annie tells me she heard that Charity got permanently excluded for throwing her shoe across the dining room. That makes me happy again.

We sit in a shelter and eat ice cream watching the seagulls divebombing the tourists for chips. Annie asks me what I’m knitting. I show her a picture on my phone. I don’t know what it’s gonna be, but it feels good. Then I take a deep breath and I ask her, “Will you help me see Kandi again?”

Annie doesn’t say nothing. Ice cream drips down her cone to the ground.

“Of course I want to,” Annie says.

Everything in me pulls tight. The ice-cream cone crunches as my hand grips it harder. There’s gonna be a “but” …

“But,” Annie says, “there’s a certain subject we’ve been ignoring today, isn’t there, Charlene?”

Yes, Annie, there is. Your son deliberately upset me. He pulled apart my knitting and then called me a psycho in front of the police.

“Blake behaved badly,” Annie says. “Very badly.”

You’re telling me? I damn well hope you told him that too.

“Of course I didn’t witness the incident …” Annie goes on.

But you saw the wool in his room, Annie. You know what he did. You know what it meant to me.

“So I can’t say if you over-reacted or not,” Annie adds.

Isn’t that what you’re saying now?